In this paper the heterogeneous firms and trade literature is extended by integrating quality of inputs and outputs in a food and agricultural setting, along with an analysis of how the ability to translate capability into higher product quality is critical in evaluating the cut-offs for food processing firms to enter domestic and export markets. Specifically, it is found that the direction of ...

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Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Our results show that expenditure decentralization robustly reduces the number of terror events in a country, while political decentralization has no impact. The effects of decentralization do not transmit through government e...

Microfinance supports mainly informal activities that often have a low return and low market demand. It may therefore be hypothesized that the aggregate poverty impact of microfinance is modest or even nonexistent. If true, the poverty impact of microfinance observed at the participant level represents either income redistribution or short-run income generation from the microfinance interventio...

When academic researchers participate in commercialization using for-profit firms there is a potentially costly trade-off – their time and effort are diverted away from academic knowledge production. This is a form of brain drain on the not-for-profit research sector that may reduce academic research productivity and adversely impact university performance and long-run economic growth. In this ...

This article examines the impact of a conditional cash transfer programme in Nicaragua on a range of consumption and productive investment measures. Programme effects are estimated using household panel data collected as part of a randomised evaluation. Despite clear evidence that the programme increased current expenditures, there is only limited evidence that it increased investment. An estim...

In recent years, Chinese government attaches great importance to information and communication technology(ICT) application in agriculture. Driven by market profits and financial privilege, information and communication enterprises, agricultural enterprises, research institutes, universities and relative associations have actively involved in ICT application in agriculture for many years. Theref...

This paper studies firms’ capability to recombine internal and local knowledge. It measures the outcome in terms of total productivity growth. Using Swedish data on commuting time for face-to-face contacts across all 290 municipalities, we employ a time sensitive approach for calculating localized knowledge within a municipality and and its close neighbors. Internal knowledge is captured by reg...

Using panel data on micro-enterprises from Peru, we find evidence suggesting that firm dynamics explain ‘formality’, i.e. the decision to participate in societal institutions. In particular, we find that participation increases with firm size and age, implying transition of firms to formality as they grow. The distinct characteristics of sub-groups, segmented according to life-cycle criteria, f...

Using panel data for a maximum of 109 countries over the years 1976-2000, we empirically analyze the impact of decentralization on the occurrence of transnational terror. Our results show that expenditure decentralization reduces the number of transnational terror events in a country, while political decentralization has no impact. These results are robust to the choice of control variables and...